I belive the are going to be dead weight, plus handicap your hearing a lot, Remember you will be relying on all your senses to stay alive, and I do not belive a helmet would be of much use other than carriyng water

Aanyway, I'd vote no on having a helmet. Depends on the situation, but you're not really going to have a lot of shrapnel going your way in most PAWs (that is, if you intend on hiking it out to a remote BOL). And they are fairly constrictive.

I'm not too concerend with a ballistic helmet, but I keep a hard hat in the truck and a Petzl helmet with my rope gear. When society collapses, no one is going to be doing maintenance and things will crumble and fall... hopefully not on my head...

Yeah, those stahlhelms (stiehlhelms?) are amazing. A design so great that they lasted two World Wars and were copied by the people who developed the new kevlar head covers for our boys and girls in uniform.

I imagine a surplus steel helm (which you can usually get for less than $50) with a modern helmet liner would suit you for most tasks aside from stopping modern, full-speed rifle rounds....which even a modern kevlar cover may not protect you from.

Politics is like having two handfuls of shit - one that smells bad and one that looks bad - and having to decide which one to put in your mouth.

"If the Russian flag were accurate, it would depict half a cabbage, a bottle of vodka, and a cold man dying for the Motherland."

a helmet can be a lifesaver or dead weight depending on you circumstance. i remember certain soldiers in my long gone army days who wore black spray painted bike helmets because they were more worried about head injuries from impact than fire or fragments. turned out to not be the best idea, but in the PAW you aren't gonna have too many brain surgeons to fix those pesky head injuries so some sort of hard head covering may not be a bad investment.

Many folks miss that aspect of PAW life, the need to be VERY CONSERVATIVE when considering physical risk! In that sort of environment a small injury can kill you more easily than combat, zeds, godzilla, etc!

A veteran is someone who, at one point, wrote a blank check made payable to 'The United States of America ' for an amount of 'up to and including their life.' That is Honor, and there are way too many people in this country who no longer understand it.'
LtCol George Goodson, USMC (Ret)

I have no problems wearing a helmet. I'm required to, and its not a bad idea, so I do. It makes sense for obvious reasons and others not so apparent.

The funny thing is, there is someone who gets paid more than I do to go around the installation posting memos about why you should wear your helmet. As though all over the AO, Joe is just taking off his grape shield and soaking up the rays.

Here is the point I'm building up to. Nine times out of ten, a kevlar is not going to save your life. We've all seen the picture and heard the story of one guy who took an AK round right in the center of his helmet. IIRC, it was a Marine. Somehow, the helmet stopped that round. I'm not the most religious guy in town, but either someone wanted him to live, or he was just plain goddamn lucky. Physics and the materiel condition of enemy equipment were probably largely responsible for that man's continued brain activity.

The safety bulletins, the memos, all the pictures I see, are of kevlars that have taken glancing hits. Hits that, were the kevlar not present, would never have touched the warriors wearing them. They may have gotten a little incontinent about the whole situation, but nothing life threatening. Show me consistent photographical evidence of a kevlar that has resisted even single impacts from common caliber weapons within their maximum effective range, and I will show some faith in this piece of equipment in that regard.

If you are going to be in an area where you expect shrapnel and debris to be flying around, by all means wear the thing as often as you wear your pants. Otherwise, you'll likely stand out like a popped-collar moron. Drawing attention is not conducive to survival in a hostile environment.

If anyone here has any first hand experience contrary to my observations, I'm more than willing to change my outlook on this subject.

Modern helmets, essentially invented for the German Sturmtruppen of WWI, are anti-frag in purpose and were never considered bulletproof. So, if you aren't taking flak, then one would think that a helmet wouldn't be necessary. However, helmets were originally conceived to protect the head from trauma during melee.

So, in the PAW, is melee combat going to be an issue? If it is, then helmets might retain their validity even if no one has an old German 88 they want to use to take potshots at ya. In 28 Days Later, riot helmets with face sheilds would have been useful, over a NBC suit and mask. A friend's dad use to tell stories of ambushing people by dropping bricks on them (This would have been in the late 50s). Could we see something like this in say St. Louis, where people, not necessarily zeds, are wanting to take your stuff 'cause they didn't bother to prepare....

As I said before, my helmet saved my brain several times while reenacting. There are no live rounds or fragments in reenacting. However there are a lot of holes, walls, drops, trees, blunt objects, etc. Helmets protect your head from everything, not just from high speed metal.

The one problem with Stahlhelme, is they whistle in the wind. I dunno if it's an issue with modern Kevlar ones, as they're a lot thicker, but with steel ones it's like having a tiny train going around your head whenever the wind goes above "Breeze" level.

Nothing is ever what it seems, but everything is exactly what it is.

Vicarious_Lee wrote:If Nutnfacny were an 8-ounce chicken fried steak, he'd come with 72 ounces of batter around it that you have to slash through to get to it.

I have been considering getting a kevlar helm. Its something I am used to, but even on the cheap, those things are expensive. Seriously though, even I would not take myself seriously if I were decked out in my gear, and wearing a Norse Helm. I am probably going to look for something a bit more protective than the skull I currently own. Might be useful, but they are heavy and bulky, so storing them anywhere than your head is going to be a waste of space.

I know first hand that kevlar, or any helmet, is not going to stop a point-blank bullet. I high velocity rifle round will get you too, but there is a chance that it will simply bounce off of your helm also. I like those odds. And where we are not talking about bullets flying, I think it would be a great idea to have head protection, and for that alone I am considering buying one.

Naked Snake: Real heroes are never made public.
Major Zero: Not in our line of work anyway.

This thread brings to mind a story my mother-in-law told me. She was visiting D.C., and in front of the White House where all the protesters gather (I don't know if they still do) she met a woman who had a large bouffant hairdo, sorta Peg Bundy style. Turns out this gal marched there every day (don't remember why) for years, and had been assaulted in the past. So she got an open-face motorcycle helmet and glued a wig to it. Concealed head protection! So maybe one of those climbing helmets with hair attached would be an option, Joe Dirt in the Paw!

Coldhaven wrote: And where we are not talking about bullets flying, I think it would be a great idea to have head protection, and for that alone I am considering buying one.

Exactly. Cranial lead poisoning is much less likely than falling down a steep incline, no matter how uncool it may be to consider. A Motorcycle or even Bicycle helmet would help keep your brains in your head, as long as you can deal with bringing down the Tacticool level of your PAW EDC.

Nothing is ever what it seems, but everything is exactly what it is.

Vicarious_Lee wrote:If Nutnfacny were an 8-ounce chicken fried steak, he'd come with 72 ounces of batter around it that you have to slash through to get to it.

Only wore a Kevlar in 1991 - that I traded with a Gunny on my boat that liked my issue steel pot better and we both had huge heads.

Other then that my only experience is with bumping my head and it hurt real bad as opposed to bumping my head with a helmet on and going about my day barely noticing. Well, that's simplified; I played football, fought in the SCA and ride bikes a lot so I know how handy a well kept helmet can be.

I wore a ton of hardhats in the Navy as well as when I was a tradesman and I've seen them save other's asses a few times. The one I remember the most was on deck of the USS St. Louis some seaman was heaving around on a line under power that was attached to something with a 3 inch shackle and the shackle pin snapped and the rest of the shackle came flying straight back at his face with the line. He instinctively looked down to accept his fate and the shackle nailed his hard hat right on the visor part and the plastic hardhat shattered. Most of it flew off his head in random pieces but the liner and band stayed on his head. As soon as it was determined he was fine we laughed at him as he changed his skivvies.

Well, if its the ZPAW, out of respect for your fellow survivalists - don't wear one! Even though it probably won't stop a rifle round, it will make it pretty damn hard for someone to punch through it in a melee.

IRL, though - all about helmets in urban environments. Maybe not a rifle bullet, but it has a chance of stopping a pistol round (and maybe an SMG round). I'll also say thanks for fragmentation protection as has been mentioned as well. Same same for stopping a half brick from a rooftop.

In the bush, though - I'll take my giggle hat over a hardcover for sure.

Bureaucracy destroys initiative. There is little that bureaucrats hate more than innovation, especially innovation that produces better results than the old routines. Improvements always make those at the top of the heap look inept. Who enjoys appearing inept? ~A Guide to Trial and Error in Government, Bene Gesserit Archive

I don't see the point of carrying body armor or a kevlar helmet. I can see owning one if you plan to bug in or evacuate by vehicle, but carrying them for any distance doesn't make much sense to me. That's weight you could be using for something else.

A hockey/skate/bike helmet does make a lot of sense. It doesn't weigh much and getting hit in the head with even mundane things like falling rocks or tree branches can put you in a world of hurt. If you're looking for one, I'd make sure what you're buying is built to a protective spec. To my knowledge skate helmets are not built to meet any specific regulatory or safety standard (although Snell has a generic one they might meet). Bike helmets generally do have protective specs.